


Revertere ad Sanctum (Return to Sanctuary) | Michael Landgon X Reader

by ave_michael



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: AU, American Horror Story spoilers, Evil Power Couple, F/M, Fluff, Post-Apocalypse, Pregnancy, Romance, Sex, Smut, infernal royalty, slight Breeding Kink, the sexiest antichrist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-06 18:21:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16837915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ave_michael/pseuds/ave_michael
Summary: After vanquishing the coven at Outpost 3, Michael is welcomed back to the Sanctuary by his expectant wife, Y/N. They have a world to rebuild, but some threats will not be easily laid to rest.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Were you personally victimized by the AHS: Apocalypse finale? Join me in my utter denial that it ever happened! 
> 
> My eternal gratitude to the tumblr anon whose request inspired this story.

“Dude, here she comes again.”

Jeff finished snorting from the copious pile of cocaine on the desk and looked up at Mutt’s words to where Y/N was walking down the hall for what must have been the tenth time that day. She had been making rounds of the Sanctuary in a vain attempt at working off her anxiety.

“Mrs. Langdon!” Mutt called out as she walked by. “You have got to calm down.”

She stopped, jolted out of her unpleasant reverie. 

“Yeah, Mrs. L,” Jeff chimed in, brushing at the thick dusting of white powder coating his nose. “Come in, take a load off.”

“Thanks, but your idea of… relaxation isn’t the same as mine,” she quipped before continuing on her sojourn.

She knew that they were rolling their eyes at her behind her back, but she cared even less about their opinions now than she ever had. Michael still had not returned from Outpost 3.

Before he had left on his mission, she had begged him to let her accompany him, but he had refused, insisting that she remain at the Sanctuary. 

“It’s far too dangerous for you to travel out there, pet,” he had said, cupping her face in one palm. “I refuse to risk losing you to the radiation, or to the cannibals out there in the wastes.”

“But that’s what I’m worried about,” she had said. “I don’t want to lose you, either.”

“Always so worried about me,” he had muttered lovingly. “But you have nothing to worry about. You’re safe here. I’ll go recover Ms. Mead, and be back before you even have time to miss me.”

“I already miss you,” she had insisted, voice choked with tears. “I have a horrible feeling about this--”

He had shushed her, wrapping her tightly in his arms. “What could go wrong? The witches are all dead. We both saw to that.”

And now, she still could not shake that dire premonition. He should have let her go with him. If something unexpected did happen, she could help him--

But then a fluttering, low in her abdomen, reminded her. There was a reason why she could no longer afford to be reckless. When she took risks, she was no longer risking only her own safety. She would be risking their family. Their future. The future of what was left of the entire world.

Damn you, Michael, she thought bitterly, bringing a hand to the small swell of her belly. Please come home to us.

Just then, a klaxon sounded and red light flashed, coloring the vision of the hydroponic orchard Y/N had been gazing out upon. A rare occurrence, but not one unheard of: The perimeter had been breached. It could be a raid… Or it could be her husband.

When she made it to the grand foyer, members of the Cooperative were already assembled in the vast, black room. It was always a bit dizzying, seeing the lines of identical metallic masks reflecting their surroundings, obscuring their true identities even after the Apocalypse. She supposed that the competition and secrecy of the old world lived on even when the rest of it died. But she had no time to contemplate the eccentricities of the rich and powerful; all she cared about was who would be coming through the door when the decontamination room opened.

A mechanical whoosh, a cloud of vapor, and a familiar face.

“My sweet girl!” Ms. Mead rushed forward and wrapped Y/N in a warm hug. “I remember everything-- Michael told me everything-- It’s so good to see you again-- And the baby--” 

The poor woman--well, robot--seemed barely able to pick one train of thought to pursue, so great was her relief to be home. As good as it felt to have such a motherly figure back, Y/N still only cared about one thing.

“Michael told you?” she asked, pulling back to look Ms. Mead in the eye. “So he’s okay? He’s here?”

Just then, the mechanical whooshing sounded again, and when Y/N looked up, there was Michael, coming through the door. He was battered and bloody, and Y/N felt her legs nearly give out beneath her, overwhelmed with a mixture of concern and relief. Michael rushed forward to embrace her, and only then, safe back in his arms, did she let go of the tears she had been holding in.

“You were right,” he whispered against her hair. “Oh my pet, you were right.”

“What happened?” she managed between sobs, but before Michael could reply, Ms. Mead interfered, resting a comforting hand on both Michael’s and Y/N’s shoulders.

“We’ll tell you all about it,” she said, “But let’s get him taken care of first. The poor boy’s been through Hell--and not in a good way.”


	2. Chapter 2

They retired to Michael and Y/N’s private quarters, a large suite of rooms secluded in the Sanctuary’s most exclusive residential area. The furnishings contrasted sharply with the sterile decor throughout the rest of the facility. It was always a comfort for Y/N to leave behind the bright white or unadorned black and sink back into their little world of ornate, dark wood furniture and soft fabrics in shades of maroon and ebony. 

She ordered a meal sent up from the kitchens while Michael and Ms. Mead settled themselves at the table in the parlor intended for receiving guests. When the food arrived, Michael fell upon it, ravenous.

“Didn’t they feed you at Outpost 3?” Y/N asked. 

Michael and Ms. Mead exchanged a pointed look, but did not reply to her question.

Instead, Ms. Mead regaled Y/N with an account of the events at Outpost 3. How Michael had found her and reminded her of who she was. How he had contrived to poison all the residents, deeming none of them suitable to join them at the Sanctuary--which Y/N knew had been a ruse all along, more than anything else. She felt a twinge of regret, wishing that she could have been there with him. They always wreaked more havoc together than apart, and how delicious it would have been to watch the outpost residents squirm under Michael’s scrutiny.

And then, Ms. Mead explained, the witches had arrived: Cordelia, Myrtle, Madison. Familiar names that Y/N had never expected--or particularly wanted--to hear again.

“How did they survive?” she asked. “The blasts should have killed them, surely?”

Ms. Mead shook her head, shrugged. “Don’t know. But they’re dead now. Thanks to Michael.”

The two exchanged a fond look. Y/N had missed seeing that, the loving, mother-and-son dynamic that they shared.

“And thanks to you, Ms. Mead,” Michael said. “I couldn’t have done it without you by my side.”

Ms. Mead chuckled. “Good thing those witches talk so much it’s easy to get the jump on them.”

She provided more blow-by-blow: The reappearance of Marie Laveau and the resulting confrontation between her and Dinah that provided the distraction needed for Ms. Mead to start the fight. The ensuing hail of bullets and magic and blood.

And Cordelia’s suicide.

“Stabbed herself,” Ms. Mead said. “Right in the heart.”

“What?” Y/N frowned and looked at Michael. “That doesn’t sound like Cordelia. Why would she do that?”

Ms. Mead answered instead. “All of her reinforcements were dead at that point. She knew she had lost. And taking herself out was easier than letting Michael kill her.”

Something about this did not fit, Y/N thought. Michael was being too quiet. Something else had happened at Outpost 3 that Ms. Mead didn’t know about, something that Michael was not telling them.

But there would be time for questions later. Exhaustion was etched into every line of Michael’s face, and Y/N knew that what he needed now was not her grilling him. 

After Michael finished eating, Y/N called for one of their attendants--having servants was one of the perks of being infernally-appointed royalty--to show Ms. Mead to the rooms they had prepared in anticipation of her arrival. Y/N bid her a good night, secured the door, and returned to Michael’s side. 

He had leaned forward, elbows on the table, face buried in his hands. Y/N danced her fingers over his arm and gently took his hands in her own. Wordlessly, he let her lead him out of the parlor, through their bedroom, and into the adjacent master bathroom. She started the shower, allowing the water to warm as she helped Michael out of his tattered clothing. Then she slipped her dress over her head, unclasped her bra and stepped out of her panties, and followed him into the billowing clouds of steam.

Michael groaned in pleasure and closed his eyes when the hot water hit his skin. Y/N tried to ignore that the water ran red with old blood, pushing aside the question of how much of it was his as she lathered shampoo into his long hair. He leaned into her touch, tilting his head back to allow her easier access as she massaged the fragrant bubbles into his scalp.

When he turned to rinse the shampoo, Y/N ran her hands over his shoulders, his chest, down to his hips. She knew that she had come too close to losing him, and now that he was back, she never wanted to stop touching him. She wanted to revel in his warm, solid presence, to remind herself that they were safe, together, and to allow herself to believe that nothing would ever threaten their security again. Even though she knew, deep down, that the thought was naive.

Michael wiped the water out of his eyes and looked down at her for just a moment before reaching for her and drawing her body flush against his, one hand against the back of her head, the other against the small of her back. He kissed her with sloppy, hungry strokes of tongue, and she returned them with equal desire as the water rained down upon them. 

He pushed her back, out from under the stream of water and against the wall of the shower, and she hissed at the contact of cold tile against her skin. He traveled down her body, kissing along her jawline and down her neck, pressing his mouth into the cup of her clavicle and running his lips over her breasts. Worshipping, devouring, until he was on his knees. He looked up at her, their eyes locking as he kissed her gently just beneath her navel. Then he lifted her leg up and over his shoulder and laved his tongue up the very center of her.

If he had not been holding her firmly by her hips, she might have collapsed at the jolt that ran through her. She twisted her fingers into his wet hair, not caring if she was pulling or how hard. She knew that he would not mind, and in fact, it only spurred him on. 

He began slow, kissing her pussy the way he had kissed her mouth, winding her up. When she moaned his name and began to grind her hips into his face, needy for more, he obliged, sucking her clit into his mouth and swirling his tongue around this most sensitive part of her. He held her in place as she came undone, forcing her to ride out her orgasm under the continued attention of his mouth until it was too much and she pulled his head back.

It was too much, yet she had not had enough.

“Michael,” she gasped out, “take me to bed.”

He stood, turned off the water, then picked her up and carried her to their bed. He laid her down gently, as though she were fragile, precious. But she did not feel fragile, and had no interest in acting as though she did. She pulled him down roughly onto the mattress beside her. In seconds she had him flat on his back as she straddled his waist, pinning him down. Arms over his head, her hands pressing his wrists down into the mattress. 

His blue eyes widened, but he grinned up at her. He squirmed under her, not because he wanted to escape, but because it turned her on more when he acted as though he did, when he pretended that he couldn’t. He could feel her wetness against him and knew that it was only partly due to what he had done to her in the shower.

Her face hovered mere inches above his. 

“Michael Langdon.”

“Y/N Langdon?” he retorted.

“If you ever try to do that again--to leave me behind--I swear, on your Father’s name, I’ll…”

“You’ll do what?” he prompted in a whisper.

“I swear I’ll never do this with you ever again.”

She released his wrists and leaned back, reaching down to guide his cock into her. She moaned as she sank down onto his hard length, relishing the way that he filled her, the almost-painful stretch as her body adjusted to accommodate him. Only when he was sunk into her to the hilt did she begin to move, holding him deep inside as she twisted her hips in sinuous figure-eights.

Michael groaned, a low, purring growl emanating from deep in his throat, as she ground her hips into his. He slid his hand between their bodies, and his thumb found her swollen clit, rubbing slow circles that brought her again to her climax. Her walls clenched around him as she came, an exquisite torture that only highlighted his own need for release. He had been so good, so gentle, barely moving as he let her take control…

He moaned her name questioningly, and her dreamy, orgasmic nod was all the permission he needed. He gripped her ass in both hands and thrust up into her tight wetness, faster and harder each time, love and concern for the tiny life growing inside of her the only thing restraining him from being as rough as he truly wanted to be. It was still enough to make her scream and clutch his shoulders, still enough to push him over the edge.

Y/N had every intention of asking Michael what he wasn’t saying about Outpost 3, but as she nestled against his chest, her eyes began to flutter closed against her will. Tomorrow, she thought, as she drifted to sleep contentedly for the first time since Michael had left. Tomorrow, she would make him tell her everything.


	3. Chapter 3

When Y/N woke the next day, Michael was still sleeping, curled up on his side facing her, one hand buried under his pillow and his other arm draped over her waist. Another time, she might have woken him up by slipping beneath the sheets and doing unspeakable things to him. But today, she gingerly slipped out of his loose embrace and got out of bed, showering and dressing as quietly as possible before tiptoeing out to the small kitchenette in their suite.

When she returned to the bedroom, tray in hand, Michael was just walking out of the bathroom, toweling his hair dry and clad only in his underwear.

“You were supposed to be in bed, still,” Y/N pouted. She held up the tray. “I brought you breakfast.”

“I can get back into bed.”

He slipped back under the black sheets and patted the space next to him, beckoning her to join. She did, and they ate together, Michael slicing off forkfuls of French toast and feeding them to her.

“How was it?” she asked. “Being back there?”

Michael wiped an errant drop of maple syrup away from the corner of Y/N’s mouth, then sucked the sweetness off of his thumb, considering her question.

“Strange,” he decided. “Heavy. There isn’t an inch of that place that doesn’t hold some memory for me.”

The same was true for her.

“Still,” she said, unable to resist the urge to try and cheer him up. “Not all of them were bad.”

“No,” he agreed. “Some of them were rather nice.” He gave her a sly smile. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw you. Wearing your adorable little schoolgirl dress--”

“You in that bowtie,” she countered, flushing at his familiar teasing.

“You were so nervous, little miss witch,” he continued, ignoring her parry. “So scared of me.”

“Of course I was,” she said. “You were the wicked boy playing at being Supreme. I barely knew what to expect when I got to Hawthorne with the other witches. None of us did.”

“And then there I was,” he said, a regal tone in his voice and a smug look on his face. “And you were so turned on that I could almost smell it on you. You had never met anyone so attract--”

“So _pompous_ ,” she cut him off before he could finish the word, but she was smiling, too. “So _arrogant_.”

“You got over your fear fast enough.”

“Yeah, I did,” she said. “You taught me plenty of new tricks.”

“You taught me some, too.” He smirked. “Like sex in the astral realm.”

“Oh no,” she groaned, covering her face in her hands, cringing at the memory of the lengths that they had gone to be together, despite the distance. “Please don’t remind me.”

“‘Michael, does it count as losing my virginity if we’re not in our physical bodies?’” he quoted her younger self.

“Stop it!”

“Remember when Cordelia caught us?”

Oh, did she ever. “She heard Latin coming from my dorm and decided to investigate. She found me with my eyes rolled back in my head--”

Michael mumbled something that sounded like “yeah, they were,” but she did not rise to the bait.

“--and she thought I had projected accidentally, and gotten trapped somewhere.”

“She always did underestimate your power,” he said. “I can still hear how she screamed when she projected to look for you and found us.”

“I thought she was going to expel me. She made me explain to Myrtle what I did. And then Madison found out, and kept asking me to teach her how to do it, in front of everyone. I was humiliated.”

Michael swallowed the bite of French toast he had been chewing and pointed at Y/N with the fork. “But you didn’t let that stop you.”

“Of course not,” she said. “I was determined to see you, however I could. Nothing can keep us apart.”

Michael laid the knife and fork on the now-empty plate and set the tray on the floor. He held his arms open to her, and she settled against him, wrapping her arms around his waist and nestling her head against his chest.

They were quiet for a moment, Michael running his fingers over her arm absentmindedly, as she chose her next words.

“Michael,” she said finally, “I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me. What else happened at the Outpost?”

His hand stilled. When he didn’t answer, she was afraid that she had overstepped some boundary that she had not known existed, that she had made him angry, somehow. She was not used to being shut out like this; once she had gained his trust, she had kept it. They had no secrets from one another.

“Michael?” 

He sighed. “When I was a child, something happened. My grandmother had brought in this priest, to exorcise the demons out of me--” he emitted a bitter chuckle “--and he ended up dead. I just… I was just scared, and I wanted him to stop. 

“When she found me, she flew into a rage. Threw me out of the house. Y/N, I was terrified. I had no idea what to do, or where to go. I was so young.”

From her position, Y/N couldn’t see Michael’s face, but she heard him sniffle and exhale loudly before continuing.

“So I ran out of the house. I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t look before I walked out into the street… I was almost hit by a car. I remember hearing the engine, and I turned to look, and it was barreling down on me. But then something happened. I don’t know if it was me, or-- or my Father, or what. But the car exploded.

“I probably should have died, anyway. The force from the explosion threw me back, and I landed in our front yard. I blacked out, but when I woke up, I didn’t have a scratch on me. My grandmother saw what happened through the window, carried me back in. I guess that she was afraid that I might do something like that to her, if she didn’t let me come back. Or maybe that was what broke her, finally.”

Y/N sat up to look Michael in the eye. 

“That’s horrible,” she said. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?”

“Because it didn’t happen.”

Y/N’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Michael, I don’t think I understand.”

“I barely understand it, myself. I remember it, but the memory has an odd texture. Like it’s new, when it shouldn’t be. Or like things were supposed to happen a different way.

“And…” Michael frowned, as though he was trying to figure out how to phrase what he had to say next. “Y/N, how many girls do you remember from Robichaux’s? Try to think of them.”

“Michael--”

He took her hands and squeezed them in his. “Just try, and tell me what happens.”

She mentally ran through everyone she remembered from classes, both students and instructors, even girls who had been potential students but decided not to attend, or were rejected. She thought she had gotten them all, but…

“It’s like I’m forgetting someone,” she said. “Like there’s this, this sort of shadow, but I can’t put a face or a name to it.”

Michael’s face was grave. “That happens to me, too, everytime I think about that fight. Like someone else was there, and then they were just gone. But not gone; like they had never been there.”

Y/N felt sick to her stomach with apprehension. “Michael, I don’t like this.”

“I don’t, either. The witches… I think they did something to me. To my memories. And I need to find out what.”

Y/N searched Michael’s face, disliking what she found there. For the first time in a long time, her husband, the most powerful being she had ever encountered, was well and truly scared.

“I don’t think that this is over, Y/N.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taking my cues from Ryan Murphy and doing a flashback. I intentionally did not name what song was playing in this chapter, so you can imagine whatever you personally find romantic. For me, it’s “Sweet” by Cigarettes After Sex, and I was listening to it when I wrote this. I might work on another update before the weekend’s over, who knows??

_Eighteen Months Ago_

Fucking grimoires, with their unreadable fucking handwriting. 

Y/N groaned and pushed the old, leather-bound volume away across her desk before rubbing her tired eyes. She knew that there was something that she was overlooking, something that would make the protection spells she had placed upon the Sanctuary more potent. The magic was good, of course. She had always excelled at magical defense, so her wards would have been good enough, even if Michael weren’t also contributing to their energetic upkeep. 

But she didn’t want them to be just good enough, just strong enough. They were too important for her to allow for even the tiniest possibility that they might fail. They had to be perfect. They were just one of many things that separated the Sanctuary from the Outposts, that made it so unique. Just one of many, but the one for which she was the most responsible.

The Sanctuary would not fall, not if she was good enough. Smart enough. Strong enough.

She had been searching through her library of magical texts, collected from her time at Robichaux’s and beyond, determined to discover something that would give her wards the extra boost she wanted, but so far her searches had not turned up anything that she had not already included in the formula or considered and discarded. 

How late was it? She had lost track of time, several discarded texts ago. Her eyes burned, her focus was shot… And the music, bass-heavy, slow and slinky, emanating up from the apartment below was not helping.

When she stepped out onto the landing at the top of the spiral staircase leading down into the parlor, it was to ask Michael to keep it down, whatever he was doing, but the words stopped in her throat when she took in the scene below.

The lights were dimmed, the only illumination from the flickering, golden light of candles scattered throughout the room. Michael stood at the foot of the staircase, leaning casually against the bannister and gazing up at her as though he had been waiting for her to come out and protest. Of course he had been…

“Come down here.”

“Michael, I--” It was tempting, so tempting. “I’m working on something.”

“You’re finished for tonight.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Now come down here, before I make you.”

It was the same voice that he used when issuing commands, the quiet, authoritative cadence that always sent a bolt of desire through her core. It was a voice that terrified everyone else, and for good reason.

Everyone but her. Not that Michael had never used concilium on her, but it was always for recreational purposes, and only after she begged him to do it. To push into her mind like he could push into her body, and make her do whatever he wanted.

She descended the stairs, taking each step slowly until she was standing only one step up from the floor, amused at being momentarily taller than he was. He placed his hand on top of hers where it rested on the handrail, caressing her knuckles with his thumb.

“I still have a lot to do tonight,” she said softly.

“You’ve been working too hard.”

He toyed with the garnet set in silver that she wore on her left ring finger, the more delicate and feminine twin to the one he wore on his. The band of tiny black diamonds that she wore nestled beneath it.

He looked back up at her face. “Tonight you’re not my second-in-command; you’re my wife. And no one will deny me the right to spoil my wife.” He grinned. “Not even you.”

She sighed and relented, letting him take her by the hand and lead her to the chaise longue in the corner. As she settled into the velvet cushions--hating to admit how good it felt, how right Michael was that she needed to rest--he reached for the bottle chilling in a bucket on the side table.

“Champagne?” she asked. “Who would have thought there would be champagne after the end of the world?”

“I was saving it so we could celebrate. I had imagined licking it off of your naked body as the bombs dropped outside.” He draped a dish towel over the bottle and twisted the cork out with a muffled pop. “But that didn’t happen.”

Pulling off the apocalypse, it turned out, was even more stressful and chaotic than either of them had anticipated. Something being destined by prophecy did not necessarily make it easy. When they had finally extricated themselves from their responsibilities and the members of the Cooperative on their first night at the Sanctuary, they had both been so exhausted that they had fallen asleep in their clothes, on top of their still-made bed.

She accepted the glass of champagne Michael offered her. “A toast?” 

“Yes, a toast. To the endings and beginnings?” he proposed.

“To being on the winning side?”

He smiled. “To us?”

“To us.”

She drank deeply, letting the alcohol loosen the tension in her shoulders and unmoor her just slightly from the tangle of thoughts and stresses cluttering her mind. 

Michael sat down on the end of the chaise, set his glass on the floor, patted his lap. “Feet.” 

She slipped off her satin flats and rested her feet on top of Michael’s thighs. She stifled a moan and leaned further back as he took her right foot in both hands and began working the soreness out of her. It was a talent of his, this ability to make her feel good in whatever way she needed, and a talent that she valued highly.

Michael switched to her left foot. “I want to ask you something.”

“Anything.” She had her eyes closed, head back.

“What do you think about us having a baby?”

The laughter bubbled up out of her throat as light and euphoric as the carbonation in the champagne she had drunk too quickly. 

“I think I like it when you joke,” she said, but when she opened her eyes to look at him, the hurt clouding his face told her that she had miscalculated.

_Oh fuck. He’s serious._

“Well, that answers my question. Thank you for your honesty.”

He started to stand up, to leave, but she leaned forward, grabbing his arm to stop him, stammering apologies.

“Michael-- I’m sorry. It’s not that I-- that I don’t want to have a baby with you.” 

Even saying the words felt unnatural, like speaking the Latin in an incantation for the first time, unsure whether it would work or backfire and knock her on her ass.

“It’s just… sudden,” she continued. 

“We’ve been married for two years, Y/N.”

“I know that, Michael,” she said, matching his tone. “But we’ve never talked about having kids. I didn’t know you even wanted to.”

“I don’t think that I knew I wanted to, until now,” he said, playing with the hem of her dress. “When has it ever been an option? When we were in school? When we eloped and were living in random Satanists’ guest rooms? This is the first time that it has even made sense to consider it.”

“But does it make sense? Michael, every day there’s something, some new problem to deal with. The reports from the Outposts are dire. How can we bring a baby into this?”

“How can we not? What’s the point of any of this if we don’t build a future?”

She took a deep breath to collect her thoughts, trying not to derail the night any further.

It wasn’t that she had never considered their future. From the moment Michael had shared his identity with her--holding up the fall of his blonde hair, shorter then, to show her the mark on his neck--their future had been almost all they had both thought about. She had always known that to commit to him was to commit, too, to his mission, to his birthright. To the annihilation of the world. 

But now they had achieved it, and she was realizing that she had never considered their future beyond the apocalypse, not in any detail. She had known that she would be with Michael, and that had been as far as her thoughts had reached. It had been enough. Without asking him, she had assumed that being together was also enough for him.

She had not considered that he did not share her shortsightedness. That he might want, need, something more.

“Why don’t you want to have a baby, really?” he asked now. “Is it me? Are you afraid that our child would be… monstrous?”

“ _No._ ” Emphatic, truthful. “Michael, how could you think that?”

“I don’t know what else it could be.”

She was getting frustrated, with herself for not being able to articulate her thoughts, with the tears pricking the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill. Frustrated with the truth.

When she spoke, her voice was quiet. Michael had to ask her to repeat herself.

“What kind of mother do you think I would be?” 

A tear broke loose and trickled down her cheek, and then another. She angrily dashed them away before he could reach for her.

“I’ve done horrible things,” she continued, thinking of the people she had betrayed, killed. “And I don’t even think they’re horrible, not really. I don’t regret anything. I probably should, but I don’t. If I had a chance, if I had a million chances, I would change nothing.”

She sighed, the sound heavy and ragged.

“Women like me don’t get to be mothers.”

Michael leaned forward and took her face in his hands, kissed her gently.

“You are the strongest woman I have ever known,” he said. “You are loyal, intelligent, powerful. You taught me everything I know about how to love and to be loved in return. If more women like you were mothers, the world wouldn’t have needed to be destroyed.”

She leaned forward and kissed him again, harder this time, needing the contact with him, the taste of him, his weight pressing down onto her. Her favorite way to resolve any argument they had.

They shifted so that her legs were around his waist and his arousal was pressing into her. He ground into her, eliciting a gasp, and ran his lips over her jawline.

“You’re not getting out of this conversation,” he whispered in her ear. “Come with me to the breeding facility tomorrow. Just so I can show you something,” he said, when she opened her mouth to protest.

And then he was kissing her neck, and running his hand up her thigh, and all she could say was yes.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Plot heavy, breeding kink, baby fever, difficulties with conception/pregnancy
> 
> Author’s Note: Raced to get this done tonight, barely proofread, and it gets sad. But Michael holds a baby, and there is some sex, and part 6 will have ritual sex, so don’t hate me too much?
> 
> Also, all of my gratitude and love to the people who have left comments and kudos! This fic is a self-indulgent pet project, and knowing that anyone else is enjoying it makes me so happy and inspires me to keep updating.

_Eighteen Months Ago_

Head high. Chin up. Shoulders back. Posture straight. Don’t smile, unless it will throw them off. Never display weakness of any kind. Calm, cold, collected. Powerful. 

Now, the performance was second nature to Y/N. As soon as she stepped over the threshold of her and Michael’s apartment, she changed, assuming the guise of royalty, capable of casual cruelty, inspiring of loyalty and love and fear. 

Sometimes it exhausted her. There were moments when she wanted to revert to the girl that she had been in years past, the girl who had the luxury of crying when she was frustrated, of picking at her cuticles when she was nervous, of looking to Michael with doubt in her eyes and receiving a comforting hand squeeze or forehead kiss, regardless of where they were. 

“You’re their fucking queen,” she could still remember Michael saying, back when they were courting the Cooperative’s assistance. Her tear-stained cheeks, Michael’s thumb and forefinger gripping her chin, not letting her look away. “So act like it.”

But it was easier to play her part knowing that Michael, too, wore a mask concealing his true self. When she stood at his side or strode through the Sanctuary’s halls with her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, their footfalls matching one another’s in perfect rhythm, as they did now, she took comfort in knowing that they were in this together. 

When they were alone together, then there could be tears or doubts. They could smile unrestrained and let their laughter be too genuine, too loud. Only when they were alone could they admit that beneath the carefully-constructed facades were still the doubtful girl and the scared boy who had found each other so unexpectedly and become, together, more than what they had been on their own.

“What is it that you wanted to show me?” she asked, glancing up at Michael as the elevator doors closed and the car smoothly began its descent. The breeding facilities were located in one of the lower levels, to ensure its safety in the unlikely event that the Sanctuary were to be overrun. 

“Impatient,” Michael chided her. “You’ll see soon enough.”

Sex and a night’s sleep had not quieted all of Y/N’s doubts about the idea of becoming a mother, but she had agreed to accompany Michael down here. She had only been to this part of the Sanctuary briefly, when she and Michael had taken a cursory tour of the repopulation and human biodiversity project’s headquarters.

It looked far more like a laboratory than like the obstetrics ward of a hospital, and Y/N had been struck by how clinical and clean it was. How impersonal it was to be a place where new life would be created. She had not been able to imagine anything as messy and human as childbirth occurring there.

The nurse at the front desk visibly started when Y/N and Michael entered the facility. She stood awkwardly, greeting them with a quaver in her voice. “We weren’t expecting you--”

“My wife and I own this facility,” Michael interrupted. “I was unaware that we require an appointment to visit.”

The nurse flushed a deep scarlet and began to sweat. “Of-- of course not, Mr. Langdon, I’m sorry-- I--”

“Perhaps you should demonstrate your remorse by buzzing us through to Dr. Singh.”

Y/N watched as the flustered nurse tapped a security code into the computer on her desk, her fingers clumsy with nerves, taking multiple attempts to get it right. She was telegraphing her thoughts so clearly that it was easy to pick up on them as she imagined all the ways that Michael was sure to punish her. Sending her out into the wastes, or just murdering her outright, she had heard that he could fucking set people on fire if he wanted to--

Finally, the locked doors behind her buzzed open, and Michael led Y/N through them without as much as a backward glance at the nurse. Y/N caught a glimpse of her before the doors swung shut, as she sank into the desk chair, boneless as a dropped marionette, head falling into her hands.

Michael led the way down the gleaming white hall, confident. He had been here enough times, Y/N realized, to know his way around.

“Who is Dr. Singh?” she asked.

“The geneticist leading the repopulation efforts.”

They stopped at an office. Michael rapped his knuckles against the open door, drawing the attention of the lab-coated man scrutinizing a file at the desk within. Short, with salt-and-pepper hair and a dark complexion, somewhere in middle age. 

Y/N watched as Michael and Dr. Singh greeted one another, noting the difference in the way her husband treated the doctor who, for his part, did not appear afraid of Michael. It was a rare person who could walk up and smile warmly at Michael the way Dr. Singh was doing now. 

“And Mrs. Langdon. A pleasure,” the doctor said as he shook her hand. “The nursery is right this way.”

He ushered them further down the corridor to a set of metal double doors. 

“Subject #6 has had some issues with colic,” he said as he shouldered the door open and held it for her and Michael, “but the pediatricians tell me that he is making a great recovery.” 

The nursery housed ten babies in two rows of infant beds, each child swaddled in downy white blankets, dozing or kicking their legs contentedly. 

“They are showing wonderful signs of progress. They have healthy appetites and are gaining weight, and are demonstrating bonding with the caregivers,” Dr. Singh continued. “Is there anything I can help you with, Mr. Langdon? Any questions?”

“Just privacy, if you will, Doctor.”

Dr. Singh nodded curtly, and with a gesture at the nurse who had been checking the babies’ charts, left Y/N and Michael alone.

When he addressed her, she could not mistake the pride and pleasure in his voice. 

“This is what I wanted you to see. These are the first children born in the Sanctuary. The future of the human race. They will never know the world as it was, and as such can move humanity forward into a brighter tomorrow. Aren’t they amazing?”

Y/N looked at the rows of infants. “Michael, did you think that just showing me these babies would make me want to have one?”

“No. I thought holding one would.”

Before she could protest, he walked over to the cot holding Subject #6 and picked up the baby, his movements utterly gentle, far more skilled than she had anticipated. She didn’t think that Michael had ever held a baby. 

“How many times have you come down here?” she asked.

Michael smiled down at the little boy, who fussed for a moment before calming back down as Michael gently rocked him in his arms. “A few times.”

She had not expected seeing Michael holding a baby to have an effect on her, but as she watched him walk over to her with the bundle in his arms, she could not deny the way her heart clenched in her chest with something alarmingly akin to longing. The way he cradled the tiny child so protectively just looked… right. 

Michael was standing right in front of her, looking into her eyes expectantly. “Do you want to hold him?” 

“Michael-- I--”

“It’s okay,” he reassured her. “Don’t be scared.”

And then he was rearranging the baby, supporting his head in one large hand, holding the infant out to her. Before she quite knew what was happening, Subject #6 was settled in her arms, opening his huge eyes to look up at her. His blue eyes.

Her breath caught in her throat and she had to acknowledge that yes, that hitch deep inside of her was longing.

Michael moved to stand behind her, so that he could look over her shoulder at the baby. She could feel him pressed against her back as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her, one hand coming around to press against her midsection, as though a child already grew there.

“This is what I want,” Michael whispered, his breath tickling against the shell of her ear. 

Looking down at Subject #6, it was so easy to imagine that the baby was theirs, and she knew that Michael was having the same exact thought. The baby fussed uncomfortably, and when Y/N rearranged the blanket, pulling it down lower from his chubby chin, his arms emerged, hands reaching up for her. One tiny hand, with tiny, perfect fingernails, grabbed hold of her finger. 

“Do you know how natural you look right now?” Michael asked. “I want to see this every single day, but with you holding our baby. I want to know that we made something that beautiful, that miraculous, together. And I want to give our son, or our daughter, the family, the love, that I never got to have.”

That night, Y/N reached beneath their bed, retrieving the small drawstring bag tucked in between the mattress and the bedframe. She was sitting on the bed, looking down at the bag in her lap, when Michael walked in and found her.

He said her name softly, questioningly, and came to sit close beside her. He watched as she untied the strings and revealed the bag’s contents: Two strands of hair, hers and his, and a red ribbon, braided together and tied with nine knots. His hair had been shorter when they made this together; the ends stuck out of the braid from where she had used multiple shorter pieces. 

“Magical birth control,” she remembered saying to him years ago. “Cheaper, more convenient, and fewer side effects.”

And, when charged monthly, damned effective. It had seen them through years of sex with not so much as a close call. It felt odd to consider undoing it now.

“Are you sure?” Michael asked, the hesitation in his voice betraying his fear that she would say no.

She let out a deep breath that she was barely aware she had been holding. “Yes. As sure as I’m going to get. Just…”

“Yes, pet?”

“Promise me that nothing will change between us.”

Michael took her hand and kissed along her knuckles. “I can’t promise that,” he said, truthfully, “but I also can’t imagine anything changing between us except for the better.”

Throughout everything, Michael had never lied to her. He had always presented her with the truth, trusting her to make her own decisions, refusing to allow her to follow him blindly.

She trusted him enough to have left her coven, to have become his wife, to have helped him to end the world. And so she also trusted him enough to believe him when he said that she would make a good mother, enough to shush the doubts whispering persistently in the back of her mind.

She held the braid in one palm and waved a hand over its length, watching as the knots undid themselves one by one, then as they caught fire, burning painlessly to ash in her hand, dispersing into nothingness with a breath.

Michael leaned in toward her, obviously eager to get started, but she stopped him with a hand pressed to his chest. “Not yet,” she said, reaching for the supplies that she had prepared on the bedside table. “I want to make sure that getting pregnant is as easy and avoiding it has been.”

She cut a strand of her hair and a strand from his, cutting from the nape of his neck where the absence would not be visible, and braided both strands together with a different ribbon. Pink, for fertility. She muttered an incantation in Latin under her breath as she worked, and as she tied each of the nine knots, she drew upon the feeling that the two of them had shared earlier in the nursery, the warmth, the love, the desire for a child of their own. She kept the image of there being three of them fixed in her mind until finally, the charm was complete.

No sooner had she slipped the bag back under the mattress than Michael was on her, all insistence and need.

It was fun, at first, their efforts to make a baby together. Y/N assumed that it would be easy. She had spent her teenage years fielding warnings to be careful. People got pregnant all the time, without even trying. So now that she was trying, she thought that it would happen almost immediately, and in the meantime, she surrendered herself to the pleasure of the process.   
She and Michael had always been eclectic in their sexual proclivities, eager to try anything to make one another feel good, unafraid of rough or kinky sex. But now, their lovemaking took on a different tone altogether. Michael developed a particular preference for watching her reactions as he fucked her hard and deep, and although he had never been stingy with praise or dirty talk, he became even more vocal.

He might lean down to bite the side of her neck, her legs pressed open as far as they would go, and whisper roughly how good she felt around him, how he was going to fill her up with his cum, asking her to beg for it.

She tracked her ovulation with close attention to detail, counting the days when she knew their chances were the best, but they didn’t let that schedule limit them. Y/N would happily climb onto Michael’s lap when he was sitting on the couch reading, plucking the book out of his hand and unzipping his pants. Or he might come up behind her in the kitchen when she woke up thirsty in the middle of the night, surprising her by bending her over the counter and pushing her panties to the side to grant him access. 

She was certain that they would get pregnant right away, but that first month, her period came like normal. She had been so sure that she hadn’t even paid attention to when her period was supposed to arrive, and it caught her unaware, the sight of blood like a blow.

“It’s alright,” Michael told her, unworried. “We just get to keep trying.”

And they tried, and tried, but every month was the same. Y/N would convince herself that it had worked. After each time they had sex, she and Michael would lay in bed, his hand on her stubbornly empty belly as they daydreamed together about their future child. 

“Do you want a boy or a girl?” she asked.

“I don’t care.”

“Really? You don’t want a son to carry on your legacy?”

“I just want a healthy baby, who has your smile, and my eyes. Nothing else matters. Besides,” he said with a smile, “we’ll have more than one.”

But days or weeks later, she would wake up with the telltale cramps in her abdomen, and when she checked, she was always bleeding.

Slowly, the trying stopped being as much fun. It was harder for her to focus on how good Michael felt moving inside of her when she was distracted by wondering what was wrong. Her previous doubts about being a good mother were replaced with new worries that she would never even have an opportunity to be a mother at all.  
Every check-up revealed nothing out of the ordinary, no defect in either of them. By all medical standards, there was nothing preventing them from getting pregnant. 

“You’re doing everything right,” Dr. Morris, the head OB/GYN in the breeding facility, who had taken Y/N on as a patient, assured her. “There’s no need to worry, Mrs. Langdon. Stress makes it harder to get pregnant, so try to relax. If traditional methods aren’t successful, there are other options.”

“But I don’t want other options,” Y/N had insisted to Michael back in their suite, when he asked how her latest appointment had gone. 

“If it would help--”

“No,” she interrupted. “We’re doing this ourselves.”

At some point, it became a matter of pride. Of proving her worth. Regardless of how irrational it was, she refused to accept that she might not be able to do this. She refused to be a failure.

Then, after more than a year of disappointments, she realized with joy that she was late. When she double-checked her calculations, she realized that she was more than two weeks late. She couldn’t contain herself; she had to tell Michael immediately. 

She burst into his office, breathless with excitement. At first he was concerned, and asked her what was wrong; he had gotten unused to seeing her happy. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, settling onto his lap. “I’m pregnant!”

Disbelief and joy battled for dominance on his face, but his eyes betrayed the truth: he was thrilled. “Are you sure? Have you taken a test?”

“I don’t need to take a test to know. I just know.”

Still, he insisted that she schedule an appointment with Dr. Morris as soon as possible. She complied happily, and spent the rest of the day floating everywhere she went. All she could think about were possible names, what the baby would look like, the possibility of having twins, and all the beautiful chaos that would entail.

That night, she drew a hot bath for herself, and sank into the perfumed water gratefully. She had been tending to Cooperative business while thinking of the baby all day long, and doing double work mentally had exhausted her.

Her smile melted from her face when she felt a clenching low in her stomach. “No,” she whispered, “no, no, no…”

She pulled herself out of the water, perched on the edge of the tub, and ran her fingers between her lower lips. They came away red.

She barely remembered what happened after that. Michael heard her sobbing, and had come to help her to bed, where she stayed for a week, unable to make herself get up. She slept, mostly, or stared at the ceiling, or made token attempts at eating the meals Michael brought to her. She let him hold her, sometimes, even though she didn’t really want to be touched, because even through her pain she knew that it was better to have him near than to cry alone.

“My pet, you have to come back to me,” he said, finally, holding her face in both hands, forcing her to look at him, his own face streaked with tears. “I’m not losing you, too.” 

She let him help her piece herself back together bit by bit, doing the everyday tasks that had been too gargantuan for her to attempt: washing her hair, dressing herself, eating toast and drinking a mug of lemon tea. He watched her for a long time, taking her in, considering, before he spoke.

“I think we should stop.”

Y/N set her mug down on the coffee table with more force than she intended. “No.”

“Yes. Y/N, it’s not working, which is one thing, but I can’t stand seeing you like this.” He gripped both her hands tightly in his. “I want a baby. But if that can’t happen, then I would rather have you. Happy and healthy and mine. I would choose that every time, over anything.”

She withdrew her hands from his. “No,” she said simply.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean what I said. We’re not giving up.” 

“Well, what do you suggest we try?” His voice was rising in pitch, building up to an argument. It was a tone that she knew meant that he felt helpless, powerless, and was compensating for it with anger. “Because this obviously isn’t working. Dr. Morris said something about fertility treatments--”

“I’m not talking about fertility treatments. I think we should look elsewhere for help.”

Michael’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Where?”

“Your father.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally. Between Christmas and agonizing over how to write this, I thought I would never finish. I think I went into a trance, because it took a way different turn than I expected. And it’s barely proofread. But here it is, anyway.

When Y/N stepped into the bedroom, she smelled the warm scent of candle wax and tasted bitter trepidation at the back of her throat. Michael had asked her, again and again, if she was sure about her decision, if she really wanted to go through with the ritual.

Although they had performed rituals together before--Y/N had vivid memories of a Black Mass in front of a Satanic congregation, the hiss of a knife across innocent throats, the warm spurt of crimson, the way the blood felt slick and then sticky on her bare skin, the mingled shame and thrill of being exposed to others as Michael took her over the altar--Michael had cautioned her that this would not be the same. When Michael spoke with his father, he did so out of necessity. Typically the occasions were born of desperation, of uncertainty, and while Y/N was there to wash the dirt or blood from Michael’s hair and take care of him afterward, she granted him his privacy during the act itself.

“I don’t always know what’s happening,” he had explained to her. “I don’t know what I’ll say, or what I’ll do. I’ll be different. I might hurt you.” 

He had swallowed hard before continuing: “I probably will hurt you.”

She had tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, knowing that even such a small, routine contact would be reassuring to them both. “I’ve never been afraid of you. And I never will be.”

Now, as the weight of what she had decided to do settled around her shoulders, she could not help wondering what awaited her in the circle of candles set up on the floor. Still, she steeled herself and padded across the room, stopping with her bare feet just outside of the circle.

Michael was already standing in the center, naked, a knife with a hooked blade held in his hand by his side. He fiddled with it nervously, jogging it back and forth between his fingers, and the flickering candle flame reflected on the metal, cruelly sharp.

He and Y/N regarded one another from opposite sides of the circle. There was no need for words; she could tell from the set of his face, the tilt of his head, that he was asking her once again if she was sure. If not, she knew, this was the time to stop it. They would agree to fertility treatments that none of the tests had indicated should be necessary, which she knew, intuitively, would not work. They did this, or they resigned themselves to being only the two of them. 

When she remembered her doubts, back when Michael had first asked her to consider starting a family, she wanted to laugh. She was so determined now that the only thing that was going to stop her from giving this man a baby would be death. No, not even that. Didn’t they know, more than anyone else, that death need not be an impediment to anything they wanted to achieve?

Wordlessly, holding Michael’s gaze, she untied the red satin belt holding her robe closed and let the silky fabric slip down off of her shoulders, pooling around her feet. She kicked it aside, her decision made.

Y/N watched as Michael brought the point of the knife to his skin, opening a long, thick gash from wrist to bicep in first one arm and then another, breathing heavy through teeth gritted with pain. She winced internally, knowing that soon enough she would feel the same pain, herself.

When the pentagram was drawn, Michael kneeling on the floor and holding the knife out her, an offering, an invitation, she finally stepped over the circle of flame. She felt the change immediately. The energy was charged, crackling electric against her skin. Michael might have taken care of the initial preparations, but with her addition, the final component had clicked into place.

She took the knife from her husband’s blood-slicked hands. Quickly, before fear could prevent her from doing so, she mimicked Michael’s actions, slashing her arms. She had known it would hurt, but she was unprepared for the intensity, her parting flesh burning as though the blade were aflame.

“Father,” she heard Michael say, his voice distant and muffled under the beating of her pulse in her ears, “we give freely of ourselves to you and we ask that you give unto us in return. Help us, Father, help us…”

But she never heard the end of Michael’s sentence. The words drowned out as she felt herself fading away, down into herself, drawn under like sinking into viscous, black water. As soon as she had the thought, the image materialized around her; she could see her hair floating out around her, see her hands in front of her, dappled with sunlight filtered through liquid, tinged with darkness. Her heart fluttered with panic, but when her mouth opened to scream, she realized that she could breathe.

Did she hear Michael shout something? Her name? Maybe, but he was so far away, and the water was warm, and so peaceful…

“What do you want?” The voice inside her head was soft, deep. She could barely tell what gender it was, but it seemed to hold inside of itself everything that she could ever desire. She could keep listening to it forever. She would keep listening to it...

“What can I give you?” it asked again, and she realized that she had not answered the first time.

“A baby,” her voice dreamy as she floated. “Please… let us have a baby. We’ve been trying… so hard…”

“All things have their price,” the voice purred inside of her. “What are you willing to give?”

Anything. The word floated through her mind before she could stop it.

“Anything?” the voice asked, amusement raising its inflection. “Very well.”

No, she thought, not bothering to speak aloud, as she began to flail in the water. She wasn’t floating, she thought, not anymore. She was heavy, was sinking, being pulled down lower, and she couldn’t breathe anymore--

“I will grant you a child, and I will take what I require. When the time comes. Anything…”

Y/N came back into herself with a jolt, drawing in big, desperate gulps of air that for a moment she had thought she would never breathe again. Where had she gone? Nowhere, of course, she had been here all along, but what--

She became aware of her body moving of its own accord, of the pleasure coursing up through her cunt, her thighs gripping Michael’s hips as she rode him. When had they started having sex? When had they ended up on the floor? She blinked away the residual haze at the edges of her vision, the last vestiges of blackness giving way to the scene below her, cast in the warm glow of candlelight… Michael’s blood-streaked torso, his hands wrapped around her wrists, her hands wrapped around her throat.

Fuck, she thought; when had she started choking him?

Instinctively she relaxed her grip, afraid of herself and fearing that she might hurt him. But his eyes were dark with pain-tinged pleasure, and when he spoke, raspy and harsh, he said, “Don’t stop.”

She tightened her hands around his throat again, stifling his groan of pleasure as she rode him harder. Her thighs were slicked with their mingled sweat and blood and her own arousal, and it was not long before she found the angle that brought his cock against her favorite spot inside herself. She leaned forward, grinding her clit against the base of his cock until her pleasure overtook her, hitting her like a punch. 

“Cum for me,” she demanded, “cum in me,” and no sooner had the words fallen from her lips than she felt Michael spasm inside of her, and she held him in deep, drawing every drop into herself.

As they came out of their shared haze of sex and ritual, pain and blood and pleasure, Y/N became aware of the bruises forming on her thighs, the bite marks and welts on Michael’s chest. When she looked at his neck, she discovered red imprints from her hands. 

“Are you okay?” 

He nodded, spent, and she drew him to her there on the floor, resting his head in the place between her chin and her chest and drawing her fingers through his hair comfortingly.   
“You closed your eyes, and when you opened them, they were empty. Black,” he told her later, when she asked what had happened. “I called your name, but it was like you couldn’t hear me. Like you weren’t there.”

“Were you afraid?”

“Yes.” The reply was immediate, wide-eyed and honest.

“Was it sexy?”

“Yes.”

For days afterward Y/N felt as though she were in a haze, the effects of the ritual lingering. She tried to push it away, but some mornings she awoke from dreams of black water, gasping for breath. Sometimes a voice whispered through her mind, all of the words unintelligible except one. Anything.

But days turned into weeks, and her blood never came. The doctors confirmed what she already knew, and, unknowing, proclaimed it lucky. If Michael had been anyone else, they might have said that it was a miracle, but they caught their tongues just short of the word.

She was scared, hardly daring to trust it even as Michael threw himself into planning from day one, considering names and resting his hand on her stomach protectively any chance he got, regardless of the fact that she wasn’t showing. Secretly she feared that she would never show, that this, too, would be taken from her.

But they got through the first month, and then another, and when the third one came she had to admit that it seemed as though this time things were going to work. Once Michael returned from Outpost 3 with Ms. Mead, determined that the three--no, four of them--were to be a family, Y/N had expected to lose herself completely in the joy and anticipation. 

Instead, she found herself distracted. At night when sleep eluded her, she lay awake in Michael’s arms and thought over what he had told her about the final confrontation with Cordelia and the other witches. She thought about her school days, trying to incite her memory to create, again, the odd shadow that happened when she tried to remember everything about Robichaux’s, the shadow that Michael said he felt when he thought about the near-fatal accident from his childhood.

She thought about the voice in the water, how she had promised it anything. And she determined that nothing the witches might have done would threaten Michael, or the vulnerable, fluttering life they had created, ever again.

She would figure out what they had done to him.


End file.
